


Orphic Rites

by summoninglupine



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Mother-Son Relationship, Orphic Tradition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26211580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summoninglupine/pseuds/summoninglupine
Summary: She rests in the mountains now. You cannot know her, you have never known her. When you ask of her that she perform her duties, you cannot understand her.
Relationships: Hades & Rhea (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: Classical Flash 2020





	Orphic Rites

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



False mother, unlovable lioness, would that she might have remained as distant as that day when she had first sacrificed him for the sake of her favoured son. It was uncharitable to brood, he knew this, and the ties between parents ensured he might make no move against her for fear of the Furies, who dwelt even further down in the dark than his own kingdom, and yet his loathing consumed him.

She had not always been here, amongst the mountains—those snowy peaks and his own domain beneath the soil forming an inverse Olympus, the like of which matched the original only in the mirroring of its qualities, splendour for squalor, but now, as the tympanon fell silent, as no feet danced in exaltation of her in the lands below, now, in the lonely mountains, she remained.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, bristling with distaste as she rose from her throne of granite, as she laid her hands upon, gestured for him to rise.

“My son,” came her words, distant and dreamlike. “My son, it has been too long.”

He allowed himself to be guided to his feet, and he did not shy away from looking at her, though her attention wavered even as she stood before him, arrested by the movements of the winds, caught by the loneliness of her mountain domain.

“Mother,” he growled in answer, the word an accusation, not a title.

She ignored him, staring past him, through him.

“Mother,” he said once more, and slowly she turned to look at him anew, amusement, surprise upon her face.

“My son, it has been too long,” she said, as if they had not played out this scene out before.

In her way, she was beautiful still, he thought, for a man notices these things even in the qualities of his mother, and Hades, no longer that mewling child that she had helped slide down his father’s gullet, was most certainly a man now.

“Mother, I come to request your presence on the occasion of my betrothal.” 

She ignored him, her dull gaze upon the winds still. 

“Mother—”

“Who will be the bride?” she asked.

He swallowed hard, and a memory resurfaced, the image of her prostrate, his younger brother labouring atop her, suckling at her. He remembered the way her hair fell upon the pillow, the way her head turned to him, curious at his arrival, shameless in her participation in such acts.

“A maiden,” he answered.

For the first time, something of her old self returned, that glint of mischief in her gaze as she turned her dark eyes towards him.

“Persephone,” she said, intuiting the truth of the matter.

Now that her gaze was upon him, he could only but look away.

“Yes, mother,” he answered.

She was silent, and yet about him, he heard the winds rise, as if they were somehow laughing at him. She turned, apparently done with their reunion, returning to her throne and effortlessly dropping back into it.

“You will come?” he asked uncertainly.

She did not look at him, but instead inclined her head.

“I will, my son.”

Around him, he could not shake the notion that the winds did mock him.


End file.
